


The Dungeon Job

by BarnabasMiller



Category: Leverage
Genre: Con Artists, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Role-Playing Game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-29 12:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19020349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarnabasMiller/pseuds/BarnabasMiller
Summary: Hardison invites the crew over for a friendly game of Dungeons and Dragons. Whether they like it or not.(Work in progress. Will add chapters as they are written.)





	The Dungeon Job

Nate Ford was collecting empty beer mugs in McRory’s as part of his nightly ritual. The aroma of spit and alcohol teased him and his past mistakes. Currently sober, he enjoyed the challenge in something as mundane as picking up after other alcoholics.

One beer mug was attached to the hand of a passed out man, with his head face-down in a bowl of pretzels. Instinctually, Nate went to swipe the mug without waking up the sleeping drunk. Not in the face of any semblance of difficulty, but just to satisfy his thirst for a mark.

The mug didn’t move out of its patron’s death grip. Alcohol was not the only thing this man had faced tonight.

“Eliot?” Nate called, with a resigned exasperation.

“What?” Eliot snapped back, mop in hand.

“What did we talk about regarding beating up our barflys?”

“That it’s okay with you-”

“Okay with me, as long as they find the exit door in the process.”

Eliot grunted through all the muscles in his body. “Well, if we didn’t have to go to Hardison’s stupid party tonight, I’d have more time to be bouncer. And janitor.” He tugs on his apron strings without undoing them completely and rips it off seemingly against the law of fabric. “And chef!”

Eliot takes the mop handle and pokes firmly on the sleeping drunk’s back. “Closing time,” he barks. The suds infected sleeper lifts his head in a drunken daze barely etching out a word before Eliot is able to wrap the apron around the thug’s neck. Eliot drags the thug across the bar floor towards the door, bumping him into every chair and table along the way.

“Next time…” Eliot mutters to his victim, as he barely strained against the weight of his drunken ragdoll, “when a lady says ‘no,’ you take ‘no’ for an answer.” He shoves him through the doorway and simultaneously slams the door and turns off the OPEN sign illuminating the entrance to McRory’s.

“Thank you, Eliot.” Nate smiled, in a weird mix of fear and amusement.

Eliot grunts. “So unappreciated around here.”

“I’ll get the lights, you put the chairs up,” Nate offered.

“Why do we have to go to Hardison’s stupid party anyway? They’re boring and they smell like orange soda.”  
“I… I don’t know, Eliot. What else do you have to do tonight?”

“That’s cold, man... When are we gonna get another job, Nate? You’re our leader. You’re supposed to help the needy. I think this slump qualifies if it means having to marvel at Wonderboy’s new iPads.”

“You’re going.”

It had been a slow month. So slow, in fact, that Hardison had been seizing this downtime as an opportunity to imprison his captive audience at numerous social gatherings up in the loft. While Alec Hardison is a man of many talents, a party host is not one of them. Always opting for some homebrewed version of a tech floor show, Hardison severely overestimated his colleagues’ enthusiasm for variable tech jargon and digital keynote presentations.

Nate and Eliot filed into the elevator, like a pair of death row inmates being lifted up to the gallows.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad.” Nate gave it a good try.

Just then, a loud clamoring noise called attention to itself above the two men. It was coming from outside the elevator.

“Parker?” Eliot looked up, squinting or grimacing. It was hard to tell.

A slender ponytailed figured popped through the grate atop the elevator and landed without a sound between the two men.

“Okay,” Parker whispered. “Don’t ruin this for Hardison. Sophie’s already arrived, and I decided to scope the place out before showing up, and… well, you’ll see.”

“Parker, why are you whispering?” Nate whispered back.

“Because, I don’t want him to know that I ruined the surprised.”

“What surprise?” Eliot muttered, concerned.

“Nothing. It’s fine.” Parker beamed, and marched out of the elevator as soon as the door opened. The boys followed tepidly followed behind.

Faint music was filling the hallway.

“Is that… a lute?” Eliot, almost choking on his words in disbelief.

They arrived at the door, and before they could reach for the handle, it swung open to reveal Hardison smiling as he threw his hands in the air.

“Greeting weary travelers! Come join this lone adventurer at this table.”

“Okay!” Parker exclaimed and ran to sit by a solemn and nervous Sophie.

“What… the hell-” Eliot trailed off, staring at the table usually used for planning their cons. It was littered with a lot of the same stuff: papers, tablets, schematics and maps of some kind, but something was off. As if none of it was for practical reasons.

Nate surveyed the room without saying a word, and finally his eyes landed on the tell. Five sets of dice were carefully laid out at each table position, one for each of them.

“Dungeons and Dragons?” Nate asked, afraid of the foregone conclusion ahead of him.

“You know it, baby!” Hardison shouted. “Go on, take a seat!”

The medieval music playing off the various bluetooth speakers wired around the loft seemed overly loud at this instant, as Eliot went and joined his colleagues at the table.

“I… need a drink,” Nate said.

“Roll to see if you successfully order a drink!” Hardison laughed as he sheperhed his final victim to the first and last Dungeons and Dragons game the Leverage crew would ever play.


End file.
